I think the less an individual is driven by greed and fear, the more they encounter meaningful coincidences in the form of signs.

What gives a coincidence meaning?
chownah

For an average human being like myself, the term"meaningful", implies "causal" or "purposive". Things don't seem to have a meaning on their own, but in relation to something else. Also when we ask: what is the meaning of life, in a way we are asking: what is the purpose of life.

Also the term "meaning" implies knowledge. When you speak in a language that i don't understand, you words will convey no meaning to me.

For someone who is driven by greed and fear, his/her wishful thinking will tend to interpret every incident to feed the fantasy. The fantasy can take many forms: getting rich, finding a partner, avoiding sickness and/or death ...etc

Out of this, clairvoyants, astrologists, palm readers ...etc seem to make a lot of money. Fear and greed makes humans vulnerable to suggestions especially in relation to what they value.

The less a human being is driven by fear and greed, the less he/she is vulnerable to suggestions and the more clarity of mind he/she would enjoy. Also when the mind is not overly obsessed and occupied by fantasizing on objects of desires, other abilities of the mind gets unleashed, especially intuition.

From evolutionary perspective, we share common ancestry with other animals, and animals seem to have certain abilities that defy human logic. For instance, animal behavior seem to change before earthquakes, pigeons homing abilities were used by humans to deliver letters ...etc

Who teaches a human baby to seek the mother's breast and suck the nipple? How sexual desires start to emerge, sometimes in the form of wet dreams when we reach puberty? and where were these desire at a younger age? How did people knew how to make sex when they lived in caves before porno? it seems these functions/abilities/knowledge are there, waiting for the right conditions to manifest themselves.

And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

I think the less an individual is driven by greed and fear, the more they encounter meaningful coincidences in the form of signs.

What gives a coincidence meaning?
chownah

For an average human being like myself, the term"meaningful", implies "causal" or "purposive". Things don't seem to have a meaning on their own, but in relation to something else. Also when we ask: what is the meaning of life, in a way we are asking: what is the purpose of life.

I brought only the first paragraph of your post because while the rest is intersting it doesn't seem to apply directly to the question I asked.

The idea that "meaningful" implies "causal" or "purposive" is mostly what science is about....so....finding meaning in coincidence with this definition of "meaningful" can be called science......is that right? So, I guess in a way we could say that if understand a coincidence, its origins and general effect then I can predict the future in some cases and also to have a pre-formed view as to what happens in similar coincidences.....so maybe predicting the future and seeing patterns in experience is what gives "meaning" to coincidence. Seems that the "meaning" does not come from the items which are coincident but from the mental fabrications made by the observer....is that right?

You say, "Things don't seem to have a meaning on their own, but in relation to something else. " which is a good set up for the question I am asking. To restate: I realise that coincidence (now you use "things"....perhaps this broadens the discussion) don't seem to have a meaning on their own.....this is exactly why I asked about what gives a coincidence meaning. Can you say what it is?.....directly?.....or at least in a couple of sentences? I don't want to overburden you with expectations of a long reply.
chownah
edit: I don't claim to understand your position but so far it seems that you are saying that it is scientific sorts of activity which give meaning to coincidence.
chownah

I brought only the first paragraph of your post because while the rest is intersting it doesn't seem to apply directly to the question I asked.

The idea that "meaningful" implies "causal" or "purposive" is mostly what science is about....so....finding meaning in coincidence with this definition of "meaningful" can be called science......is that right? So, I guess in a way we could say that if understand a coincidence, its origins and general effect then I can predict the future in some cases and also to have a pre-formed view as to what happens in similar coincidences.....so maybe predicting the future and seeing patterns in experience is what gives "meaning" to coincidence. Seems that the "meaning" does not come from the items which are coincident but from the mental fabrications made by the observer....is that right?

You say, "Things don't seem to have a meaning on their own, but in relation to something else. " which is a good set up for the question I am asking. To restate: I realise that coincidence (now you use "things"....perhaps this broadens the discussion) don't seem to have a meaning on their own.....this is exactly why I asked about what gives a coincidence meaning. Can you say what it is?.....directly?.....or at least in a couple of sentences? I don't want to overburden you with expectations of a long reply.
chownah
edit: I don't claim to understand your position but so far it seems that you are saying that it is scientific sorts of activity which give meaning to coincidence.
chownah

I started my post by saying "for an average person like me" to avoid giving the false impression that i am a sage who see and experience signs! I also know of synchronicity (as a theory) but i preferred not to quote an external source but to convey how my mind try to make sense of it especially i am generally a skeptic.

The idea of meaningful coincidences is paradoxical, because the former implies causal, and the later implies acausal, but generally, the belief in one unifying truth behind appearances seem to give meaning to some simultaneous events.

To speak from my own experience, since i started to practice the dhamma, i started to notice that the more we are detached, the more things go our way, which is in fact counter intuitive in the sense that usually people teach you that the more you want things, the more you get them. No wonder, the book "the secret" was a best seller, because its telling people to fantasize all the time about what they want (they call it the law of attraction).

For instance, finding a job is very difficult in my country. When i decided to leave my old job and to start volunteering i had faith, and faith is the opposite of fear. I ended up getting a good job, working with mostly good people without ever applying for it. I was a volunteer and they offered me the job, i never asked.

Where i live, Buddhism has no existence, but one of my previous colleagues had a small Buddha statue decorating her office. I saw it as a good sign/omen (considering how unlikely to find/encounter such a thing in my country) and she bought it from Burma when she was invited by some Buddhists who visited my country to participate in an event related to faith based campaign organized by the organization we work for, and when she was going to resign, she told me that i can take it when she leaves. This gave rise to feelings of greed in me because i wanted the statue to confirm an idea in my mind that i am, somehow, on the right direction. To my disappointment, she left the statue along with other things in her office but forgot to give it to me and it ended up in the office of another colleague. I wanted to tell him that the statue was promised to me but reminded myself that Buddhism is about letting go and i thought that i should be happy for him for getting the statue (even though the statue does not represent to him the same meaning it represents to me). Everyone in the office knows that i am a Buddhist, and the guy implied that he can give the statue if i want it, but i decided to never ask for it. On my last birthday, i found the statue on my office as a gift when i forgot about the whole thing!

Usually, i love traveling and i made a habit of traveling every year and i usually do it during Ramdan because i don't like the whole atmosphere. Because i spend too much money, last year i could not travel and i accepted the situation reflecting on how lucky i am to travel many times in my life and fulfilling my desires while the vast majority could not leave the country even once. Last December, there was a conference in Barcelona, and all staff members from the three countries where our organization operates wanted to go, but i never asked wishing happiness to whoever goes. It was meant to be our director who will attend, but due to certain circumstances, he could not get the visa. I was sitting at home and all of the sudden i received a phone call from my supervisor asking me if i can go to Barcelona. I was the only one who did not ask for it, and it came to me, and i suspect it caused a bit of jealousy from some colleagues especially those who were too desperate to go.

If you tell me two years ago that i would have my own place to have the time and space for myself, i would not believed it. I spent all my money traveling, engaging in hedonistic and risky behavior. And now, i am owning a small apartment where i can have time for myself. My mother helped me to purchase a small apartment, i never asked for it and in fact, i did not want my mother to spend her money, but it happened.

The above might mean nothing to most people, but i am increasingly believing that the more i am detached, the more i am safe both internally and externally. It also worth noting that detachment cannot be faked, you cannot tell yourself that you are detached when your real intention is to attach. Life seem to be most generous to those who don't ask. And this in turn gave rise to feelings of gratitude inside me, and a wish to give something back.

And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

Is this the support for the story that Buddha's alms bowel went up word the Ganges river?

Have your questions been answered?
Does the fact that rivers can reverse their flow direction support the story?
Also, I don't want to watch all of the video so can you tell me the time stamp for where it talks about things you are wanting to talk about....I looked but can't find anything that seems relevant to rivers flowing etc.
chownah

Notice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.

Thanks for bringing this. It seems that you have found the place of interest in the video which the OP presented. Can you tell me the time stamp so I can go look at it?...please?
chownah

Start at @ approx 32:40 when the cleric speaks of the Ganges "flow[ing] back toward the north".

THanks for that. Now I see why I missed it. THe video is primed to start at 33:01 which is AFTER this explanation.

I have been looking at google earth and it seems that there are many many places where the ganages river flows towards the north and that this is not very unique at all.

Also, it seems that the river referenced in the folk tale was not the ganges river anyway but the Neranjara River. I looked at wikipedia and found:

The Lilajan River (also known by its older name: Niranjan River and also mentioned as Nilanjan River) flows through the Chatra and Gaya districts in the Indian states of Jharkhand and Bihar. Some people refer to this river as the Falgu River.

So I found the falgu river on google earth and discovered that is nowhere near varanasi...it is way over by bodh gaya (quite a ways) and as far as I could see it never comes anywhere near varanasi.

It seems that the video (talking about the ganges near varanasi) has nothing to do with the folk tale (having to do with the neranjara river by bodh gaya).

Coëmgenu wrote:
[quoteNotice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.]

Good one C.
Perhaps there is a mountain blocking the flow downwards.

From the wikipedia article on varanasi:

Varanasi is located at an elevation of 80.71 metres (264.8 ft)[35] in the centre of the Ganges valley of North India,

To the best of my knowledge there are no mountains in the centre of the ganges valley.....am I mistaken?
chownah

The river almost always flows southward. It always flows downhill.

The river turns and flows northward (but downhill!) at Varanasi. This is why some Hindus this that Varanasi is special. Because the Ganges flows northward here, and it very rarely flows northward, it is believed to be "special", for right or wrong.

Last edited by Coëmgenu on Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

But when the Bodhisatta had finished eating that milk-rice, he took the golden vessel, and said: “If I shall be able to-day to become a Buddha, let this pot go up the stream; if not, let it go down the stream!” and he threw it into the water. And it went, in spite of the stream, eighty cubits up the river in the middle of the stream, all the way as quickly as a fleet horse. And diving into a whirlpool it went to the palace of Kāḷa Nāgarāja (the Black Snake King); and striking against the bowls from which the three previous Buddhas had eaten, it made them sound “Killi killi!” and stopped as the lowest of them. Kāḷa, the Snake King, hearing the noise, exclaimed: “Yesterday a Buddha arose, now to-day another has arisen,” and he stood praising him in many hundred stanzas.
(Nidānakathā, tr. Th. Rhys Davids pp. 187-8)

What has any of this have to do with the story of the Buddha's bowl floating upstream?

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

And yet several posters took it upon themselves to find a common-sensical explanation for how the Buddha's bowl could float against the stream. How come they did that?

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

And yet several posters took it upon themselves to find a common-sensical explanation for how the Buddha's bowl could float against the stream. How come they did that?

IMO because they needed to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream of the river.

IMO because they needed to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream of the river.

You think Chownah, for example, needs to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream?

I haven't read the thread, to be truly honest. Perhaps he does. Perhaps he "needs" to believe in all of the miracles of the Buddha, including the Twin Miracle. I would not know. Perhaps I am the fool for prematurely judging various agents before having actually read their own words.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

I think that question is: naive, or proof of lacking faith, or asked in bad faith.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

I think that question is: naive, or proof of lacking faith, or asked in bad faith.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

I can't remember that exchange, sorry ...

Point is: it is a wild and unambiguously "magical" miracle of the Buddha. No "the river was interfered with by a mountain" that can explain it.

It is naive, lacking faith, asked in bad faith, dependent on the definition of "faith" in question. Some would say it is profound faith to say the Buddha did not perform the Twin Miracle, neither at the Gayāsīsa stupa as recorded in the Chinese & Sanskrit nor at the gates of Śrāvastī as in the Pāli. Some say that only by discarding falsehoods do we progress. Perhaps the Buddha, or more accurately "the Buddhisms", gives us a few extra falsehoods, like "the path" itself, to help us.